Wealthy Theatre is a historic movie theatre and performance center in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...

. It is currently operated by the Grand Rapids Community Media Center, a non-profit corporation. Wealthy Theatre is a mixed use facility, capable of hosting live music, film, theatre and dance.

History

Wealthy Theatre was constructed in 1911 for vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 and live theater, and later became a neighborhood movie house. The original name of the venue was the Pastime Vaudette. Due to the decline in popularity of vaudeville, the Pastime closed its doors before the end of the decade, becoming a warehouse for the Michigan Aircraft Company during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The Theatre was renamed Wealthy Theatre in the 1920s after being purchased by Oscar and Lillian Varneau and resumed operation as a movie house. By the 1960s it had shifted to foreign films and by the mid 1970’s operations ceased. The building stood empty and decaying for more than 25 years before the South East Economic Development neighborhood association launched a capital campaign to fund its restoration. The Theatre re-opened in 1998 as an independent not-for-profit community arts center. In 2005 Wealthy Theatre was acquired by the Grand Rapids Community Media Center, a non profit organization operating the local Public-access television

Public-access television

Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...

 cable TV channel, GRTV, as well as community radio station 88.1FM WYCE

WYCE

WYCE is an American Community Radio station, broadcasting a Noncommercial, Triple A format. The station's music is programmed by volunteers, drawing from a diverse library of eclectic music, primarily folk, rock, blues, worldbeat and jazz music, with some emphasis on local...

, and The Rapidian - an online citizen journalism platform.

Peter Wege Auditorium

The Peter Wege Auditorium is the primary venue of Wealthy Theatre. The capacity is 400 persons with multiple barrier-free sections. The Peter Wege Auditorium is named after its main benefactor, Peter Wege. His gift in the 1990's helped renovate and restore this space to its present condition.

Dirk Koning Micro-Cinema

The Koning Micro-Cinema is the secondary space at 1130 Wealthy SE, in the same building as the primary space (The Peter Wege Auditorium). The capacity is 60 persons with four barrier-free available. The Koning is named after Community Media Center's founding director, the late Dirk Koning. The Micro-Cinema space was created in 2007 in response to the need for a smaller, more intimate gathering space. This smaller space serves for movies, smaller comedy events, lectures, forums, acoustic musical performances and other uses.